I don't use Canon's DPP very often but yesterday I'd shot some RAW files I needed to work on, I went to my copy of DPP, opened it and it started crashing, I guessed it hadn't been updated since I installed 10.8, simple answer - go to Canon's site, get the latest version which was supposed to work with 10.8 and download it - I opened the dmg, ran the installer and it just un-compressed and then went no further!

I tried several times, even downloaded from the USA site, same problem. Browsing around I found a user on the Canon forum site who'd had the same problem and solved it by installing under a different user name, so I created a new OS X user called Install, switched to that user and the DPP update installed with no problems!

Why it wouldn't install under my Administrator user I don't know - an Apple problem or a Canon problem? - I've no idea, but at least I now have DPP 3.13.0 working under OS X 10.8.3.

FCPX is not for me. I tried it, I edited a couple of programs from footage I'd previously edited in FCP7 so I knew the footage I wanted and the structure of the edit. The first, I'd previously edited in FCP7 was a short interview to run for about 4 minutes, it took around 40 minutes using FCP7 - it took over 6 hours in FCPX - OK, I realise I didn't know the program but I'd watched over 2 hours of tutorials and I knew basically how the program worked but with several issues I encountered, I had to go looking on forums, nothing complicated just 'issues'.

There's no doubt it's a clever, usable program if it suits you and your way of working, too often I thought it was a "wizzy, throw it together and let the program sort it out, then upload to YouTube" type of editing rather than an editors program, I went back into iMovie just to compare, the similarities are scary, rather than FCPX it really should have been called iMovie Pro but if it had, I doubt if pro editors would have given it a second look.

For Apple to sell a pro program (or App) for around the £200 UK mark, they must be aiming for volume, professional programs by their nature have always sold for a lot more money, the original FCP was around £1200, FCP 7 was £800, Adobe (before their CC model) sold / still sell CS6 for around £1600, pro's expect to pay a higher price for their working software but by releasing FCPX for under £200 Apple obviously expected many 'non pro's' to buy it.

I spoke to several FCP7 editors while I was testing FCPX, they said they'd only switched because they felt they had to but admitted they fell back to using FCP7 for anything longer or more precise. One guy I spoke to told me his client insisted he use FCPX and bought and paid for it for him, the editor then supplied an edit and the client enthused on how much crisper and sharper the edit looked - he didn't know the editor had actually used FCP7 and Motion 5 and not FCPX.

It took Apple many versions to get OS X and Final Cut Pro to the point where they are now, they constantly developed them, I'm guessing by the time FCPX gets to v11 or v12 I might adopt it, for me it's too early in the development cycle yet.

I have also been trying CS6, it's everything FCP8 should have been but it's 'horses for courses', we don't all drive one particular make of car or drink one brand of coffee, we have a choice - my choice, until I can no longer use it, is FCP7 with Motion 5 and the range of new plugs and templates that are appearing.

When I first put a Media 100 system in back in 1994, I bought 6 x 4.3Gb SCSI drives at £2500 each, today I installed a new 3Tb eSATA drive from Ebuyer for £161.00! Great drive for the price, 4 interfaces - USB2, USB3, FW800 and eSATA.

Although I'm only using the 30 day trial at the moment. I'd watched a series of tutorials and thought it was worth a try. I've used Final Cut for 13 years, I started with v2.0.1 and think I know the program quite well now, but X really is a different way of working. I'd recently edited a short piece in FCP7 interviewing a local farrier, it took me around 40 minutes and there were some difficult audio cuts, FCP7 coped with it like it always does - no problem!

I thought re-editing it in X would be a good starting point as I knew how I wanted it cut and I knew the footage. 6 hours later, several visits to the FCPX forum on Creative Cow and I'd got the finished piece, not as easy as the tutorials make out! One major bug bear for me was no audio cross fades - what were Apple thinking!

I use audio cross fades to 'clean' cuts when I've cut out a word, a breath or similar, just dragging and dropping a 0dB cross fade takes out that click the cut often leaves, a CC forum post gives an answer - "Split the clips (Cmd-Shift-G) to separate the audio from video, then bring the audio clips together in a secondary storyline (Cmd-G), then apply a transition to them to get the cross fade (Cmd-T). This will be the faster option for applying to several clips, but the audio & video link for the clips will be broken." - Yeah, right!

Another problem I've not found an answer - stereo to mono, I shoot 2 channels of audio, often a tie clip and an on-camera or boom mic, the JVC puts these as a stereo pair, in FCP7 a simple unlink gives me separate mono channels - not in FCPX!

One aspect did impress me, I downloaded 7toX from the App Store, this takes an FCP7 sequence and converts it to open in FCPX. There were mixed reviews on the App site but for £6.50 I thought I'd try it. I took a sequence I'd edited, did a Media Manage on it and saved it to a different location, I then opened that MM sequence to test it, then an export to XML. Opening the XML in 7to X and then into FCPX - it was all there, all my cuts, dissolves, voice, SFX's and music - the only thing missing was my fade to black at the end - a neat little App.

It's early days yet, there's no doubt FCPX has some very slick features and is supposedly quick for editing but my first impressions are that it is still iMovie on Viagra, at the moment I'm looking at it in the same way as my electric drills, stay with me, I'll explain - I have 2 electric drills, a powerful, drill through anything and it'll also punch in large screws, the other will drill, but it's more of an electric screwdriver and came with lots of fancy attachments, they'll both drill holes and put screws in but I choose the one that'll do the right job at the time if you follow my logic?

Will I buy it? - that's open to question at the moment, I don't actually think I need to go to FCPX but, some of the new effects and options appeal to me, ask me again in 24 days!

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